WASHINGTON — A defense policy bill the U.S. House passed 281-140 Wednesday afternoon would allow Americans who have returned after being imprisoned abroad to apply for an official declaration by the federal government that their detention or conviction was "invalid."

The provision was something that Michigan's Paul Whelan encouraged lawmakers to adopt, he said.

Whelan of Manchester, a former security executive for the auto parts giant BorgWarner, was released as part of a prisoner swap in August after Russia held him for more than five years and seven months on espionage charges that he and U.S. officials long deemed bogus.

Under the text of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, a U.S. national who returned after being held abroad could seek from the president a "declaration of invalidity," which "officially declares the detention abroad of the national as invalid for the purpose of completing any documentation that warrants a background investigation or review of prior offenses, such as a conviction."

The declaration would be available to those U.S. nationals deemed unlawfully or "wrongfully detained" abroad, meaning the U.S. government considers the charges against them to be made up and that they're essentially a political hostage held in an effort to extract something of value from the U.S.

The provision comes amid an increase in recent years in the number of Americans deemed wrongfully detained by adversarial countries such as Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela.

Three Americans were released by China last month as part of another prisoner swap. And in the wake of the fall of the Assad regime, the Washington Post reported a U.S. group was traveling to Syria this week to search for journalist Austin Tice, a former Marine who disappeared while reporting on the country's civil war 12 years ago.

It's unclear from the legislative text what entity would generate the declaration of invalidity, but Whelan said it would likely be generated by the State Department as a pro forma document that returned hostages could use when applying for employment, professional licenses, state and federal benefits or whenever a question is asked regarding prior arrest, conviction or prison time.

"The problem now is that saying yes invalidates an application. Saying no could cause legal problems down the road. The letter clarifies the situation from the president’s hand," Whelan told The Detroit News. "If this measure passes, I would ask for the letter."

After a closed trial, Whelan was convicted on espionage charges in Moscow in June 2020 and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor, four of which he served at a remote prison labor camp in Mordovia before his release.

Whelan said he had brought up this issue in meetings in Washington in recent months with bipartisan members of Congress, staff of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations panels, as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger D. Carstens and his team.

"Think about things impacted by criminal histories and credit histories: Bank and credit card accounts, notary commissions, rental apartments and leasing cars, employment, unemployment benefits, concealed weapons permits, even global entry cards," Whelan said.

"The presidential letter would help a former hostage navigate answering arrest or conviction questions honestly and not worry about having issues in the future. It happens to be common that answering 'yes' to arrest and conviction results in automatic denial. Appeals can then be troublesome and painstakingly lengthy."

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Having official documentation from the U.S. government that effectively “clears your record” is a valid and important step in helping former hostages and detainees resume as close to a normal life as they can as quickly as they can, said Dani Gilbert, who has studied the trend of hostage-taking wrongful detentions.

“Broadly, there’s an assumption that when someone comes home from being held hostage or being wrongfully detained, that that’s the end of the story and everything is great. But what we keep learning from all of these former hostages, detainees and their families is there’s so many complications and struggles that don’t make the news and don't get a lot of support,” said Gilbert, an assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University.

“They continue to struggle for a very long time. Those challenges are legal, financial, emotional and all the kind of issues that former hostages, detainees face.”

Whelan said he was also pleased to see a provision in the NDAA text that would allow U.S. passport applicants to waive prohibitions on the disclosure of personal information that's typically protected by the federal Privacy Act in the case that a traveler is deemed wrongfully detained by a foreign government.

The Privacy Act was initially a hurdle in Whelan's case because the Russians wouldn't allow him to sign the waiver that would have allowed the U.S. government to share information about his detention, he said. Countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland ― of which Whelan is also a citizen ― allow for a verbal waiver.

"The State Department says it cannot act without the waiver, and family, friend, media, government interaction is vital in these cases," Whelan said. "The waiver being on file prior to a foreign trip is an extremely important step in ensuring American citizens are assisted properly."

More: Timeline of Michigan resident Paul Whelan's detention in a Russian prison

The NDAA also orders a report from Carstens' team on strategies and options for deterring and reducing the likelihood of U.S. nationals being wrongfully detailed or taken hostage abroad.

"We’ve been really pushing to get this stuff into the NDAA, and the hostage provisions are certainly going to help dozens of Americans who have been taken hostage by terrorist groups and rogue nations," said U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham, who co-chairs the Hostage Task Force in the House.

"These provisions make it easier for the U.S. government to advocate for the release of hostages and those wrongfully detained."

Stevens also highlighted provisions that would authorize $2 million to implement sanctions under the 2020 Robert Levinson Act to deter hostage taking, and another that would require new travel advisories on government websites and by airports and airlines to warn Americans against traveling to regions where hostage taking is becoming more common, she said.

"Part of deterring is arming our citizens with the best information so that they can protect their safety while abroad," she said. "Part of it is letting our adversaries know we're not going to stand for this."

Gilbert is serving on a 16-member bipartisan commission convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies that's examining ways to deter hostage taking and for improving how the government organizes itself to address various aspects of this issue.

Gilbert noted that the Levinson Act sanctions are meant to sanction specific individuals responsible for or complicit in the hostage taking or wrongful detention, for example by revoking visas or blocking property access. The intent is to make it more difficult for staff to carry out the hostage taking rather than just the leader of a country. But Gilbert isn't convinced such sanctions work.

"Sometimes countries turn to sanctions because its a way to express disapproval and for something to do that's not military force," Gilbert said. "But I don’t think we have a lot of concrete evidence that imposing these sanctions makes a big difference in the worst perpetrators' willingness to perpetrate more hostage taking."

Stevens, who represented Whelan in Congress for several years after his arrest, said she's working to get other hostage-related measures into a legislative vehicle, such as funding for a provision of the Levinson Act that says wrongful detainees and their families should be provided up to five years of medical, mental health and other support upon their return home.

Congress has never funded that element of the law, and Whelan has spoken about his struggle to secure health insurance since he's been back.

"We are certainly pushing for the health care," Stevens said. "It’s a complicated process, but I’m beginning to review compensation for those returned, and what that would look like."

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